Chapter 5 – THE LIES WE PAID FOR

I sat in the snow, completely paralyzed.

The freezing wind whipped my hair across my face, but I couldn’t feel the cold. I couldn’t feel anything except a sickening, terrifying drop in my stomach.

My mother.

My fragile, bedridden mother who needed expensive oxygen tanks and round-the-clock care. The woman I had been breaking my back to support by scrubbing floors in this mansion.

She was the blackmailer.

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head violently. “No, my mother was a neonatal nurse at St. Jude’s. She retired three years ago because of her lungs. She doesn’t know Vanessa Bellini.”

David let out a weak, agonizing groan, his head lolling to the side.

“Check… the payments,” he choked out. “The medical bills you pay every month, Hannah. Look at the routing numbers. They aren’t going to a hospital. They’re going to Vanessa’s private LLC.”

I felt a wave of absolute nausea.

Answer one: My mother’s astronomical “medical bills” were fake.

Open two: Why was Vanessa charging me money if my mother was the one blackmailing her?

My hands shook as I pulled my phone from my apron pocket. I opened my banking app, scrolling desperately through the last eleven months of transfers. Every paycheck I earned as a maid went to a medical supply company called Bellini Holdings.

I wasn’t paying for my mother’s care.

Vanessa was forcing me to pay back the hush money she had given my mother three years ago. I was working as an indentured servant to the woman who stole Sofia’s children, completely blind to the truth.

“She kept you close,” David whispered, coughing up blood. “Vanessa hired you as a maid so she could watch you. To make sure your mother never spoke.”

Reversal: I wasn’t just a random girl who needed a job. I was a hostage in plain sight.

Before I could process the sheer magnitude of the betrayal, the sound of crunching snow echoed from the darkness.

A figure emerged from the pine trees.

It was a woman. She was wearing a heavy black coat, her dark hair tangled with snow and pine needles. In one hand, she held a silver revolver. With her other hand, she was clutching a terrified little boy against her hip.

Sofia Moretti.

She looked exactly like Luca, but her eyes were wild, hollowed out by three years of running.

She aimed the gun directly at my chest.

“Step away from him,” Sofia ordered, her voice cracking with exhaustion.

I scrambled backward, holding my hands up.

Sofia didn’t shoot me. She walked over to David, looking down at the bleeding man with absolute disgust.

“Where is my daughter, David?” she demanded.

“I don’t know,” David wheezed. “Luca… Luca went looking for her.”

Sofia’s face paled. “Luca? He’s out here?”

“He knows the truth, Sofia,” I blurted out.

Sofia’s gun snapped back to me. “Shut up! You work for that bitch! You’re probably the one who fed my babies while she kept them in a cage!”

“No!” I cried, tears finally spilling over my freezing cheeks. “I didn’t know! None of us knew! Teresa found them, and she told Luca everything at dinner tonight!”

Sofia stared at me, her chest heaving. The little boy in her arms, Leo, buried his face in her neck, shivering violently.

Answer one: Sofia realizes Luca wasn’t the monster who stole her children.

Open two: If Luca is in the woods looking for the little girl, who is coming down the driveway right now?

Suddenly, the roar of a high-powered engine shattered the silence.

A pair of blinding headlights swept across the snow. A black SUV tore through the open estate gates, fishtailing violently on the icy pavement before slamming to a halt ten feet from us.

The doors flew open.

Four men in heavy tactical gear stepped out, armed with assault rifles.

And stepping out from the passenger side, wrapped in a luxurious white fur coat over her red evening gown, was Vanessa Bellini.

She had managed to get out of the locked dining room.

Vanessa looked at David bleeding on the ground, then at me, and finally, her eyes locked onto Sofia and the little boy.

A slow, terrifying smile spread across Vanessa’s face.

“Well,” Vanessa said, her breath pluming in the cold air. “Isn’t this a lovely family reunion.”

Sofia raised her revolver, aiming it right at Vanessa’s head. “I will kill you, Vanessa. I swear to God I will blow your brains out into the snow.”

Vanessa laughed. “With what, sweetheart? That antique piece of garbage? My men will cut you in half before you pull the trigger.”

Vanessa held out her hand.

“Give me my son, Sofia.”

“He is not your son!” Sofia screamed.

“He will be by tomorrow morning,” Vanessa said coldly. She glanced at me. “And you, Hannah. What a disappointment. I gave you a job. I kept your pathetic mother’s secret. And this is how you repay me?”

Vanessa reached into her fur coat and pulled out a small, velvet box.

Reversal: Vanessa didn’t pull out a weapon. She pulled out her own engagement ring.

She threw it into the snow at my feet.

“I don’t need Luca anymore,” Vanessa said, her eyes dead and cold. “The wedding is off. I have the boy. That’s all the syndicate needs to recognize my claim to the estate.”

Vanessa nodded to her men. “Kill the sister. Kill the maid. Bring me the child.”

The men raised their rifles.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the gunfire.

But instead of gunshots, a massive, deafening explosion rocked the ground beneath us.

A wall of bright orange fire erupted from the East Wing of the mansion behind us, blowing the glass windows out into the night sky.

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